Wow Comics Vol 1 10
Supporting Characters: * Mrs. Bromfield Villains: * Doc Durgo ** Peanut ** Small Fry ** at least four more thugs and apprentice thugs Other Characters: * Locations: * Items: * Vehicles: * | Editor2_1 = Ralph Daigh | Editor2_2 = Al Allard | Writer2_1 = | Penciler2_1 = | Inker2_1 = | StoryTitle2 = Commando Yank: "Ghosts of the Maginot Line" | Synopsis2 = General DeGaulle visits the Commando Post to recruit a volunteer for a very dangerous mission, and Commando Yank, in his costume and mask, steps up to take it on. The plan is to recover a lost French secret weapon, a Flame Ball Thrower, from behind enemy lines. He's paradropped near the southern tip of Belgium, along the Franco-German border, at an overrun Maginot Line fortress, where he meets a bayonet-wielding sentry, and knocks him out using his parachute as a weapon, then steals his uniform for a disguise. He infiltrates a guard detail assigned to Baron Steinkopf, who is just now learning, by telephone, of the existence of the Flame Ball Thrower. His new orders are the same as Commando Yank's: to find and recover it. They spend hours poking through the fortress without finding it, until the last remaining unsearched part is the "haunted gallery," where 5000 Frenchmen died and from which strange hooting noises now emanate, and where Steinkopf is reluctant to search. Commando Yank's cover gets blown, and there's a fight, but with German reinforcements arriving, Yank escapes into the haunted gallery, where he meets two British soldiers who are putting on a ghost act. These Brits had got caught at Dunkirk then later escaped and now were holed up here, for three years, living on canned food supplies. The German troops attack C.Y.'s new friends, but he repels them with a hand grenade, which collapses part of the structure, walling them out. Yank is introduced to Yvette LaRue, who also has been there for three years, and who knows about the Flame Ball Thrower. Two copies exist; one is held by Yvette's quite-mad father Colonel LaRue, who holds it at the ready, waiting for the Boche to attack as if the last three years had never happened, and one is all set up and ready to travel. Steinkopf meantime has brought some troops to the surface and prepares to attack the haunted gallery from a new direction. Unfortunately for them, this approach brings them right across Colonel LaRue's line of fire, and he mows them down with mad glee. Yvette is persuaded to join Commando Yank and the pair of British stragglers in retreating to England. They're able to hijack a railroad train (Commando Yank knows how to operate a steam locomotive), and they race for the coast. A fighter plane attacks the short train, but they're able to shoot it down with the Flame Ball Thrower, and they soon arrive at Dunkirk, steal a boat, cross the English Channel, turn the weapon over to Gen. DeGaulle, and commemorate the heroic death of Col. LaRue. | Appearing2 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Villains: * Baron Steinkopf * Nazi German military forces Other Characters: * General Charles DeGaulle * two British "ghosts" * Yvette LaRue * Colonel LaRue Locations: * Commando Post, in Britain * ruins of the Maginot Line, south of Belgium * Dunkirk, France Items: * Flame Ball Thrower Vehicles: * | Editor3_1 = Ralph Daigh | Editor3_2 = Al Allard | Writer3_1 = | Penciler3_1 = Marc Swayze | Inker3_1 = Marc Swayze | StoryTitle3 = The Phantom Eagle: "The Airman Robinson Crusoe" | Synopsis3 = Japanese bombers attack the Pacific airbase where Sgt. Flog is busting the chops of Pvt. Malone, who quickly sneaks away to his secret hangar and takes off in his personal warplane and counterattacks. As soon as they see that the Phantom Eagle is on the scene, the Japanese retreat. But P.E., (who is, according to Sgt. Flog, "the greatest flyer there ever was! Yes sir ... THE GREATEST !!!") has taken off with only a quarter-tank of fuel, so he has to circle around to sneak back to the airfield, but he runs out of gas and has to make a pancake landing on an almost-deserted island, south of the base, where he encounters John Robinson and his man Thursday. Robinson has been marooned there since 1930; Thursday has been there almost as long. Regular surface boats are unlaunchable from this island due to the rocky shoreline. They've built a house and an "air machine" (consisting of a sailboat with four balloons), which they've prudently never used to try to leave this island. Robinson has invented several other equally-useless flying machines but clearly none of them are going to get the job done. Meanwhile back at the airbase the Japanese have returned, and the Americans are all gobsmacked and wishing the Phantom Eagle was there to save their bacon. They fruitlessly try to call him on the radio. Also a Japanese plane randomly crashes on Robinson's island, with three survivors, who quickly and stealthily discover Micky and John and Thursday and sneak up and confront them with pistols. The unarmed Americans quickly defeat them hand-to-hand, then take off in one of Robinson's contraptions, a balloon inflated with marsh gas. Surprisingly it works, and even more surprisingly the Japanese are able to get the "air machine" airborne, and pursue them, shooting guns. Micky adroitly pilots his balloon close in and directly above the Japanese balloon and Robinson and Thursday slash open the enemies' airbags; the Japanese plunge to their deaths. But the crappy balloon carrying our heroes doesn't last much longer after that, and bursts at low altitude, dumping our boys back onto their island. A quick search of the small island finds them the crashed-up ruins of the Japanese plane; it hasn't caught fire; they're able to salvage the fuel supply and gas up Mickey's plane and fly back to his U.S. base, where an aerial battle is still in progress. Phantom Eagle lands, drops off his passengers, takes off again and zooms into the fight, turning the tide in favor of the Americans. Soon we see Robinson and Thursday, clean shaven and dressed up in civilian attire, telling Sgt Flog about the amazing Phantom Eagle while Flog supervises Pvt Malone's floor-scrubbing efforts. | Appearing3 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Sergeant Flog Villains: * Imperial Japanese military forces Other Characters: * John Robinson * Thursday Locations: * unnamed islands in the Pacific Theater Items: * Vehicles: * Phantom Eagle's unique fighter plane | Editor4_1 = Ralph Daigh | Editor4_2 = Al Allard | Writer4_1 = | Penciler4_1 = | Inker4_1 = | StoryTitle4 = Mr. Scarlet and Pinky: "Crime A La Carte!" | Synopsis4 = At a nationwide jeweler's convention in a large hotel, a squad of tuxedoed waiters talks their way past the door-guarding cops, carrying trays of fancy-looking food which, once they're in the convention hall, turns out to be wax fake food filled with knockout gas. All the jewelers fall asleep while the waiters put on gas masks then open the windows to ventilate the room, then loot the room, unmask, and again talk their way past the unsuspecting cops at the door. According to the next day's newspaper, this is the third time this week that this gag has worked. Meanwhile at their clientless law office, the penniless and very hungry Brian and Pinky Butler bewail their financial misfortune (Brian got fired from his special prosecutor job, over ten weeks earlier, because Mr Scarlet was outperforming him so much), when Brian's ex-secretary Miss Wade shows up at the door and wants to take them out to lunch. Brian refuses, pretending to be too busy with his heavy caseload, she leaves. Meanwhile nearby, the Masked Chef is cooking up lunch for his gang, one of whom he poisons, temporarily and just enough to make a point, in punishment for some earlier underperformance. Then he sends them away and reminds them to check the next day's newspaper for their coded instructions about their next bold crime. The next day, Brian has gotten hungry enough to try to mooch a lunch from famous actor Brod Reedley, who owes Mr Scarlet some favors. They change clothes and visit his penthouse, arriving right behind the food-delivery gang (at least 3 of them), who have gained admittance under the pretext of delivering some special diet food. Reedley has his own private gym, and keeps his valuables in a safe in the gym, which the hoods start trying to open after knocking him out. Scarlet & Pinky crash into the room and beat up the well-armed robbers, until one of them pulls out a container of nitro, which stops the fight, but he stumbles on a dumb-bell and there's a big explosion. Most or all of the gangsters are killed, leaving not even enough to bury, but one of them has a newspaper clipping, with some thinly-coded directions to this very crime. Scarlet and Pinky race away over the rooftops, still very hungry. Meanwhile at a newspaper office in the same city, the Masked Chef walks into the Press Room. Nobody knows who he really is, but he has a syndicated column that he bats out every day at lunch time, from a typewriter in that office, then leaves. While he's there an excited reporter runs in with the news about Mr Scarlet and Pinky blowing up the Food Mob at Reedley's place; the enraged Masked Chef breaks a pencil and quietly vows to get revenge. Either the next day or later that evening, at their clientless law office, Pinky cracks the code of the clue in the clipping, as being instructions for the earlier botched robbery, so Mr. Scarlet and Pinky costume up and go to the newspaper office, confront the publisher, find out about the Masked Chef's routine, and then in the composing room they put together enough info to figure out that the next crime will be at the National Food Show scheduled for the next day at the Madison Stadium. The typesetter just happens to remember the Masked Chef's mailing address (15 Baker Lane) so the busted crime busters, who can't afford a taxi, have to jog to that address. They get there and break in, and while they're distracted by a tableful of food, both are head-konked unconscious by the Masked Chef. They wake up the next day, and the Chef and his goons set them up to get cooked in really large brick ovens. A smoked ham with a big fork in it has been carelessly left in Pinky's oven; he wiggles and swings until he's got the fork and uses it to pick apart his bindings, then frees Mr. Scarlet. Meanwhile at the stadium, the crooks are using a grenade to blow up the heavily-guarded box office. Scarlet and Pinky soon arrive on foot and there's a page-and-a-half of fighting among the giant food-themed props at the exhibition, ending with the robbers all knocked out except for the Masked Chef who's gotten away. Or has he? Scarlet and Pinky return to the newspaper office, where Mr Scarlet punches out the typesetter, and explains that this is the only guy who could have ensured that his coded messages would be printed in just the right way for the instructions to be readable. | Appearing4 = Featured Characters: * * Supporting Characters: * Villains: * The Masked Chef Other Characters: * Brod Reedley, successful actor Locations: * , on Earth-S ** Brian Butler's law office at 13 Park Row ** Newspaper Office ** the Masked Chef's house at 15 Baker Lane ** Madison Stadium | Notes = * Mister Scarlet: ** At one point in "Crime A La Carte", it is either "The next day" (according to a caption) or later on in "this afternoon" (according to Pinky's remarks). ** In Crime A La Carte, Mr. Scarlet and Pinky are both head-konked unconscious with a blunt instrument. This is Mr. Scarlet's eighth cranial concussion, and Pinky's fourth. * Also appearing in this issue of Wow Comics are: ** Dr. Pat Kelly: "Japs Loose Face - Facing Death!" (sic) , by Nathaniel Nitkin ** Padlock Jones: "The Episode of the Absent-Minded Fox" | Trivia = | Recommended = | Links = * Wow Comics #5 entire issue, (all stories complete) * Read "Phantom Eagle: The Airman Robinson Crusoe" online, (minus final page) }}